


Heat Wave

by AngelOfDeath10



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, First Dates, First Meetings, Friendship, Humor, Lime, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-20 22:57:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21064580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelOfDeath10/pseuds/AngelOfDeath10
Summary: Having trouble dealing with developments at home Maka impulsively decides to go drink her dinner. The handsome pianist at the bar makes her think perhaps the night isn't a total waste, even if he can't fix everything on her mind.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater characters, I just want to smoosh them together in my mind a bit.
> 
> Originally written in 2015.

His fingers lazily danced over the keys, tapping out the tune that had been circulating in his mind earlier that day. With only half his thoughts on performing the exorcism that was creative expression, Soul definitely noted the moment the blond woman walked into the sweltering bar.

In a rather prim business skirt and jacket, the kind that was a lint free jet black that couldn't be anything but much too hot in this weather, she was pulling at the white collar of her shirt and striding with purpose down the steps. Practical low-heeled shoes clacked on the cement floor as she carefully navigated her way down inside and then made a B-line for the bar.

Black Star, the only person Soul knew who had tried to trademark his name in preparation for impending fame and idol status once his acting career took off, waggled eyebrows at Soul. No doubt he saw her as a challenge to upsell the expensive liquor. Since Black Star was incapable of doing anything at less than full volume, the nearly empty bar was quickly filled with the resonant projection that was better suited for an auditorium than a small basement.

"Hey lady, whatever you're lookin' for I promise you I, Black Star, will exceed your expectations and pour you so perfect a drink you'll find it a practically religious experience!" Soul snorted to himself, the tenor of his freeform jazz expressive with his amusement. He knew for a fact that Black Star used the same line on women in clubs, with only a small adjustment, to little success. Black Star was only as successful as he was with the ladies because he played the numbers, having a thick enough skin and a thick enough skull to simply approach every woman until one said yes.

The woman, sweat beading on her forehead, was in the process of putting it up into twin pigtails and examining the dusty drink menu on the wall. It appeared she had totally ignored the blue haired ignoramus, who was still engaging her in one-sided conversation. Soul applauded her good sense, and then allowed his attention to fade away from the spectacle.

"… I have an almost godly sense when it comes to mixing drinks. I bet you a hundred laps around this bar that I will serve you something that will knock your socks off!"

"I'm not wearing socks." Her voice was as crisp and purposeful as her walk. "And I'll take a beer. Whatever is on tap. If it's bitter, then all the better."

Black Star continued to extoll the virtues of the various (expensive) mixed drinks he claimed would cure all her ills while pulling her a dark beer. Soul flicked his eyes up in their direction once more to see the woman tapping her foot as she tolerated his bombastic claims. It only took Soul a second more to see she was following the rhythm of the piano. Testing her out, he switched up the tempo to find her switch her tapping almost as quickly. Breaking into a toothy grin, Soul realized that he had somehow procured an audience of one tonight.

Drink in hand, those long legs of hers brought her nearer to him and she carefully placed a napkin first under the beer on the ancient and stained table before setting down her purse in a chair and stripping off her black suit jacket. The diamond of sweat on her back made her white shirt see through enough that Soul could make out the outline of her sensible white camisole. No wonder she was sweating buckets in this heat with all those layers.

Realizing he had played the same phrases over again while blatantly checking her out, Soul tried to detach his interest and play it a little cooler. He saw attractive women all the time, usually actresses in proximity to Black Star who kept somehow landing roles despite his height (and personality). Drifting in and out of that world was a lot of trouble, though, and Soul hadn't liked the drama that had resulted from dating any woman drawn into Black Star's well of ego. It had a sort of gravity all its own, always attracting the crazy.

He watched the woman crack her neck and her knuckles, it was such a masculine gesture he played a flat note, discordant and surprised. She took a long draw from her glass and then allowed her rigid posture to soften ever so slightly. Turning to face him he felt like those light green eyes of her pierced into him and saw something he couldn't, and he was sure the temperature went up another three degrees. At this rate he was going to pit up his shirt.

"Do you take requests?" She pulled a couple dollar bills from her purse, eyeing the empty tip jar, and before Soul could say anything she had walked over to drop a few dollars in the cracked container.

With a dry mouth he watched the woman undo the top two buttons of her shirt, and he immediately wondered what she would be like in bed: reserved, controlled, impatient, or maybe criticizing every move. Then again maybe none of those things. He knew he was gaping at her like an idiot, mind wandering as she calmly waited for him to answer her question.

"If I know it, I guess so." He wanted to smack himself in the head for such a dorky response. Something about this woman made him unreasonably eager to please her, he thought. He didn't owe anybody anything, he just came here to play this detuned piece of shit when Black Star was working bar and he felt too bored to lay around in his apartment.

"Do you know Life on Mars?" Her lips quirked into a half smile and Soul wished he were in on the joke.

"I can fake it a bit." He had a general idea how it went, not that he could remember a single lyric. It was one of those piano pieces he vaguely remembered playing around with back in the day. Launching in he heard her hum along to a couple measures before turning around to head back to her seat. He didn't want to let her get away, suddenly, and blurted out. "So you like Bowie?"

He played, adding in his own improvisations due to both a spotty memory of the music and to stave off the boredom of simply parroting what he remembered. She stopped mid-turn and arched eyebrows delicately at him before gracing him with a smile that was shockingly sweet where up until now all she had given away to the world was severity.

"I think I just like that it starts with the lines 'it's a god-awful small affair, to the girl with the mousy hair'. I guess that sounds pretty self-centered." Her smile went wider, touching her eyes now, and Soul wondered how he didn't see how damn beautiful she was the moment she walked in here. His heart sped up and so did his tempo just a tad.

"Not a lot of songs about guys with white hair so I can't say I can relate." He grinned at her, wondering if his unusually pointed teeth were a turn off or turn on for her. They tended to be polarizing, with some women a little too enthusiastic about them. After running into a couple of girls with vampire fetishes, he started being a little more circumspect about flashing them around.

"You know how it is when you're a teenager though, everything feels like it's about you anyway. And that line in it about mom and dad… well sometimes unrelated things hit a nerve at the right time in life."

"Problems with the parents? I can relate." He hoped her childhood had not been as dysfunctional as his. Emancipation at 16 had been both the best and worst decision of his life: the struggles, the fights over the phone, and the disappointment from his brother… not that he felt he ever really escaped that life.

"I'm Maka, by the way, Maka Albarn."

"Soul."

She snorted. "I guess you were born to play music then, with a name like that."

A little too close to the truth of things, he returned to the music until he calmed his reaction to her words down a bit. He had strayed far off the melody of Life on Mars anyway, so he took the opportunity to circle back around to it. Maka was leaning on the side of the piano, still remarkably stiff.

"Bring your drink over, Maka." He liked the way her name rolled around in his mouth, and he immediately wanted to say it a few more times.

Giving him another one of her gentle smiles, she did just that, carefully transporting all her things to the table next to the piano. He moved away from the Bowie into an indirectly inspired little hook that was pulling at the back of his mind. Something like 'Maka's theme', perhaps, if he worked on it a little more sometime and polished out the rough parts that he just felt like might not be her. Not that he knew her, but he felt like he should.

After moving her things Maka swiped her arm against her forehead to get the beads of sweat threatening to fall, but it did nothing for the drip that formed near her collarbone that ran down into the gap at the top of her shirt. Soul, catching it in the corner of his vision, felt desire tighten his gut and pounded on the keys a little harder to distract himself.

***

Maka hadn't planned on going to a bar on a Tuesday evening, being someone who adhered to her schedules with clockwork precision. Maka Albarn was, above all things, responsible and mature. So when she came home to her cozy apartment to find her papa sitting on her couch and watching TV she immediately thought two things: giving him a key had been a horrible idea, and something was wrong.

"Papa got thrown out, again. I know you won't turn out your dear papa, Maka!" His wobbly voice and puppy eyes were greeted with Maka pressing her lips into a thin disapproving line.

His newest girlfriend must have gotten a clue that she wasn't the only one, as they inevitably did. Usually he had secured a second girlfriend who was less aware and could simply transfer his possessions to the next apartment like a hermit crab moving from shell to shell, but this one must have gotten wind of things faster than expected. This happened maybe once a year since she had gotten her own apartment after college. The sigh she felt building in her mind didn't quite escape her lips.

"You should really get A/C, Maka, it's too hot in here for you!" Which really meant it was too hot in here for him. She was content with cold showers before bed during this heat wave, but her papa wasn't the kind of person who could tolerate much physical discomfort. The pampered consultant for fortune 500 companies spent most of his time in nice hotel rooms across the country, and she would bet money he was rarely alone in those rooms. He must be between consulting jobs as well as women, then.

Keys still in hand, annoyed at her childish parent and unwilling to get into a fight about the merits of various appliances she might or might not need, Maka did the most logical thing she could think to do and told her papa she was going out to get a late dinner. He was all solicitous attention, telling her to eat something healthy and drink lots of water because it was so hot here. Didn't she worry about dehydration?

At a certain point she had to tune out his saccharine tones born of true parental concern with a dash of selfishness and simply leave. At first she had thought to truly go get some food, being the kind of person who wanted to turn what had started as a lie into the truth, when she had seen the flashing neon sign that had led her down into this bar. Beer was liquid bread, right? That might be close enough, and she wasn't so far she couldn't walk home after. It was the kind of night she felt like she needed a drink. Or a few drinks.

The short bartender with the practically electric blue hair was squawking at her about something as she picked out a drink, unfamiliar with the various beers but mostly just deciding whatever she got needed to be cheap enough that she could drink a lot of it before she went home without feeling like she was wasting money. Being drunk enough to sleep through her papa's late night TV watching was going to be key to her sanity this first night of who knew how many he would be staying on her couch. Concentrating on the piano helped her tune out the loudmouth as well as forget the buzzing worry in the back of her mind about her papa, and by extension herself. How long would it be before her papa acted like a real grownup?

Turning towards the piano with her drink in hand, she saw the man playing was arrestingly handsome. The realization hit her hard, almost stopping her in her tracks, because she wasn't the kind of woman who had her head turned often by any man. Bedroom eyes, messy white hair, an untucked red dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up exposing strong forearms ending in long fingered artistic hands that would glide over the keys gracefully. He seemed intent on what he was doing, so she took a seat and finally relieved herself of her dark blazer which had been perfectly reasonable at work in her frigid office building but was doing her no favors now.

It felt great to let her stress go a little as she indulged in cracking her knuckles loudly, the popping of her neck a terrible accompaniment as she tasted the bitter beer she'd ordered. Not really liking beer, she was hoping the bad taste would prevent her from overdoing it too much on an empty stomach. A long time ago, before she had the option of going to bars, she would use her room to escape her reality. When mama and papa had been getting into those screaming fights shortly before the divorce she remembered tuning them out by closing the door and turning up her music loud enough to make it her own world. Maka's heart ached in her chest in chorus with fourteen-year-old Maka's pain.

What she wouldn't give to be able to plug in and tune out the world right now.

Digging in her purse she found a few loose bills and wandered over to the handsome pianist. Maybe he knew some of the standards of her young isolation. His smile made her stomach flip as he turned burgundy eyes in her direction and pinned her to the ground. As he asked her questions she reflected on how this was not the song she remembered blasting over the sounds of her parents fighting but she liked his version better. He puts emphasis on parts she didn't even notice before and added in things she didn't even know she wanted to hear until they vibrated the air. Never being a musical person, Maka had to stifle deep envy at how easily it seemed to come to him. Some people are gifted with incredible powers, she supposed.

They chatted for a bit and Maka was amazed someone like him wanted to talk to her, but then it was probably part of his job to chat up the customers. At least he was better at it than that pushy guy at the bar. Soul, and she doubts that's his real name but isn't about to call him out on that, is the kind of man that Maka knows she can't stay away from and she worries a little bit about that even as she eagerly took a table closer to him at his insistence.

It felt like a million degrees in here, her cold beer so bitter that she can't drink it fast enough to get relief, and she wished she had a tissue or something to mop at her forehead. Wiping away some sweat, she heard Soul shift his tone at the piano and wondered how many hours it would take her to be able to express herself like that on an instrument.

"I couldn't do that." Maka sighed wistfully and sipped some more beer with a grimace.

"Do what?" She loved how gravelly his voice was. It's the kind of voice she would assume would be accompanied with cigarettes, but he didn't smell like anything except faint cologne and sweat this close. It wasn't unpleasant.

"Play like you do. It's incredible." He shrugged at her words, but that toothy grin of his broke out again giving her a little electric jolt. She knows her sincere words have pleased him. "I know I could learn to play, and I could probably be technically skilled, but I don't have that piece of me that drives me to be creative like that."

Soul seemed to come to some sort of conclusion and turned to face her with his full attention, his slightly slumped shoulders and lazy eyes at odds with how intently he examined her.

"You're probably right, not a creative bone in your body." He made eye contact with the man at the bar and held up two fingers before turning his attention back to a slightly irritated Maka.

"Jerk! You don't have to put it like that." She huffed and tried to vent some of the heat of her body by pulling at her shirt. The smile wiped off of Soul's face until the loudmouth bartender arrived with two drinks. Her beer was still half full, but she thanked him as gracefully as she could.

"Don't know who you are lady, but you must cough up gold coins or repair rare motorcycles because I haven't seen this cheapskate buy a girl a drink practically since we threw out those fake I.D.s back in…"

"Black Star shut your face and go back to cleaning glasses or something!"

Maka watched carefully as an unspoken argument seemed to pass between the two friends entirely through facial expressions before the bartender backed off with a laugh and disappeared into a back room. They were truly the only ones in the whole place and normally being left alone with a guy would put her on the defensive, but she didn't know if it was the alcohol or if it was Soul because she was more relaxed than she had ever been before. She felt like she was in exactly the right place at the right time with the right person.

***

If you had asked Soul to describe his dream girl an hour ago he would have said something along the lines of "pretty and chill with huge tits," but now he felt like the world had turned on its axis and the stars had realigned because if a girl like that had cut in to talk to him while he was with Maka he would have brushed her off like a fly. Maybe his dream girl was more like a sandy blond with eyes that stripped his reason, a flat chest, and legs for miles.

"…and then he just showed up tonight, unannounced like usual eating what is probably the last food in the fridge and complaining about the A/C—or lack thereof—and I just don't know if I feel up to it this time. Maybe I should pay for a hotel for him, or something." Maka was nursing her third beer but clearly drinking on an empty stomach had made her more forthcoming than she might have been otherwise. "I'm sorry I just told you all that, I guess I'm just another stupid drunk with a problem whining at you. You must hear it all the time."

She seemed to think he worked here, like Black Star, and he hadn't disabused her of the notion yet because he liked hearing her talk and he thought it might be different if he told her he was just hanging out to play piano.

"How can you not own an air conditioner?"

"Not you, too!" Maka groaned. "Why buy a huge bulky thing that I would only use a couple weeks a year? I take a cold shower and go straight to bed, I don't run very hot when I sleep so I've been fine."

"Your job must not pay you very much. Air conditioners aren't that expensive."

Maka sighed. "It isn't the money. I just don't like owning a lot of superfluous stuff, except books. My apartment looks like a library, practically. It makes me feel really relaxed to know I can just go home and grab a book off the shelf before bed."

Soul wasn't really much of a book person. He'd sooner see the movie adaption, or have a friend sum it up, which is how he got in trouble in English class time and again in high school. Between the two of them, Soul was shocked he and Black Star made it out of high school with a diploma of any kind. Not a great testament to the public school system that it evaluated them fit to move on to the next level of education.

"My office is full of books, too, but tax regulation reference manuals aren't everyone's cup of tea. I think they don't make for any worse reading than, say, a medical textbook…" Soul didn't think either of those sounded like any fun to a sane person.

His expression must have given away something because her dreamy smile became guarded. Soul tried to backpedal so she wouldn't do something crazy like leave him all alone at the table.

"Hey, I mean, whatever makes you happy right? Your thing is books, and my thing is music. You have to have something that gets the stress out." She ran a finger around the rim of her empty glass and Soul tried not to think about how he'd like to get some stress out with her help right then. What was winding him up was how oblivious she was to her own appeal. Normally attractive women flirted with him casually, and he flirted right back but Maka wasn't playing games. It was throwing him off that he couldn't get a bead on if she saw him as a man or not.

"Don't worry, you don't have to make me feel better. I know I don't have the kind of job or the kind of hobbies that endear me to people. When I'm not reading I'm at the gym on weekend mornings taking Tai Chi." She made a fist and then flattened it out slowly on the table before swirling her fingers against the condensation left on her glass. "I was thinking of dropping those and taking up kickboxing. I think I need something that helps me get out a little more aggression." There was a glint in her eye that made Soul swallow the last of his own beer to relieve his dry throat.

Soul wondered how someone so spindly could want to put herself in harm's way, but he supposed everyone had their own demons to fight. Not everyone could turn it inward like him and sit on it. That little voice in the back of his head had never told him to fight, it had always told him to roll over and fall asleep and let the world pass on by. Maka's fighting spirit was almost invigorating to just hear about secondhand.

"Ugh," in the comfortable silence, Maka huffed and sighed as she pulled at her shirt. "I thought it would get cooler once the sun was down but it's just more humid somehow. I don't want to give in an get an air conditioner on principle but I'm half considering sleeping in my office at work if it's going to be like this."

"You could come over to my place for a couple hours." Soul felt the words blurt out of his mouth before he could properly think them through. Maka gave him that sideways glance that told him even though she had three beers and no food in her that no man inviting her into his apartment was going to be trusted.

"That sounded bad."

"You bet it did." She agreed with him.

He ran a hand through his hair, feeling like he had flubbed this totally and should just retreat home anyway. "I don't live alone, I have a two bedroom a few blocks over and my roommate is a chick," He might have said 'lady' but he was not entirely sure linking Blair to the word lady would be offensive to her or to ladies. "She works weird hours, so I couldn't say if she's home or not, but it's not like I'm planning on anything weird. We can watch a movie, you can cool off and sober up, and then you can go home to your dad…?"

Maka made a low noise in the back of her throat, a kind of hum that seemed to take the place of words while she decided to trust him or not.

"How about I have some water here, sober up, and _then_ we go watch a movie in your air conditioning? I mean your apartment!" Her blush after the slip made him laugh and at least let him know the real draw in his invitation. Soul didn't take it personally, he was just happy she was going to trust him even a little bit so he had a little more time to win her over.


	2. Chapter 2

His apartment was a freaking oasis. Everything that could be sweaty and gross on his body was sweaty and gross, and Soul knew it was just compounded by his nervousness over the fact that Maka was here with him against all expectation and reason. Even Black Star couldn't believe it, and loudly told him so as they were leaving the bar together. He'd get that asshole back later.

Of course, alarm bells rang in his head as soon as he saw the air conditioner working its magic next to the window. Either Blair was home or she had left it on, again, on her way out to a shoot. There was no clattering of pots in the kitchenette or any suspiciously shower-like noises from the bathroom. Avoiding Blair had been a key part of his last minute plans when he had thoughtlessly invited Maka to his place.

"Looks like my housemate left the A/C on again," Soul could feel the nervous laughter choke him and tried to play it off as a cough before offering to take Maka's blazer and hang it up next to the door. Pretty slick move, he thought.

"This is _perfect._" Maka sighed and then turned her shining smile up at him. They weren't too terribly apart in height, but Soul also admitted to having the worst posture at pretty much all times.

"TV is over that way. Glass of water?" Even the walk over in the dying strands of light had been far too hot for his liking.

"Yes, thanks." Maka was doing a good job of very subtly checking out his apartment. Another talent of hers must be evaluating her environments quickly because somehow she had located the remote to the stereo that he was sure he had lost two days ago. He had even checked the damn sofa for it, finding only a molding piece of what he hoped was chocolate. "Your remote doesn't work."

Giving the living room a once over for old socks, the main offenders of his cast off laundry, Soul deposited two glasses of water on the coffee table and gently removed the remote from her hand. There was a brief moment where he thought she wasn't going to relinquish it, but when their hands brushed she suddenly let go and sat down.

"Wrong one. The TV remote is probably…" He scanned around and noticed a conspicuous lump under a magazine, snatching it up triumphantly. "So what do you want to watch?" He plopped down into his usual spot, the slight sag of the couch molding against his butt in that way that reminded him he should go to the gym like Black Star kept telling him he should.

"I don't care so long as I get to set next to the A/C." Her eyes were closed appreciatively and the bald pleasure on her face made him jealous of a damn heap of plastic and wires. "You pick."

Soul snuck sideways glances at her and flipped the TV on to some random action movie that broke to commercial after the first explosion. He didn't really care what they were watching, he was much more interested in Maka's commentary once she began to pick things apart.

"Why would anyone buy whatever allergy medication that was, I mean they came right out and said side effects were epilepsy, sleepwalking, and heart disease. I'd rather have the runny nose!" Her snort was cute, and Soul watched her go all analytical on the advertising with vague amusement. She was nervous, he realized. Maybe that meant she felt even a little bit of the chemistry between them that was making his palms sweat in a cold room. It was too early to make a move, but Soul rolled around possible date invitations in his mind to try to find just the right scenario to offer up.

There was dinner, but that was too lame and normal. They could go listen to music, after all she had liked his piano playing, but most of the live music he wanted to go to also posed the risk of being recognized as an Evans and that was a host of other issues. Too early for family drama, didn't want to scare her off. Clubbing didn't seem like her scene, plus Black Star would find a way to fuck it up somehow. He had an uncanny ability to be present exactly when Soul didn't want him to be. Maka seemed to like doing physical stuff in her spare time, maybe that would be a good angle…

His world came crashing down as a pair of braless double Ds winked at him from across the room. Immediately staring down at his lap before clapping both hands over his face, Soul gave a brief tortured glance over at Maka who was following Blair's path through the apartment with a remarkably calm face.

"I thought you were out, Blair!" Soul said, voice muffled through his hands.

Clad in nothing but a navy blue thong and her long black hair, Blair had yawned and stretched her way over to the kitchen to pull Soul's milk out of the fridge and drink directly from the carton. If he had seen he would have been disgusted.

"Oh, we have company." Blair's delighted lilting voice carried to Soul's ears like a witch's curse. "You're so pretty! I'm Blair." Soul allowed himself enough space between his fingers to see if Blair had magically found a shirt. Nope.

"Maka Albarn." Maka said woodenly.

"Well, nice to meet you! I had a long day today so I'm getting back to my nap. Don't do anything I wouldn't do…" And just because Soul had thought that was the end and it couldn't get any worse, Blair added, "Remember, those free condoms I get are in the bathroom. Have fun you two!"

It took Soul a moment to realize the noise he was hearing was his own low despairing moan and forced himself to snap out of it. When he finally had the nerve to look up and meet Maka's alarmingly serene face, she simply tilted her head and asked him:

"So… are they real?" She made a gesture to her chest like she was outlining two cantaloupes and Soul knew a burning blush had spread across his face. Not cool.

"I don't know. Probably. Who cares?" He didn't know what she wanted to hear. This had happened once before to Soul when he'd brought a girl back to the apartment, and that time there had been hysterics and a slapped face to deal with. Maka's calm seemed ominous, like instead of a slap he would shortly be concussed. "Look, Blair is someone I met through Black Star. He had said she was just another actress and she had an open room in a two bedroom that she really needed someone to rent at short notice. It was only later I found out actress in this case was a smoke screen for 'adult film star' but by then I had already signed a lease."

Maka nodded slowly like that made perfect sense. "This apartment must be a pretty good deal. How much do you pay per month?"

How could she be so calm about this?! He felt like he was losing his shit!

"Are you sure you're ok? I mean…" Soul wasn't sure what to say next.

"I've seen breasts before, Soul." She said it like he was silly for thinking she hadn't. He knew if he tried to say anything more then he would start stuttering; he had no prepared method to deal with a woman like Maka. "She seemed nice enough, if a little underdressed for my taste."

Taking his hands, those green eyes of hers stripped him of sense and completely sucked him in. "This is her home too, and if she wants to walk around naked that's her business. I'm a guest here. If I ever had her over to my apartment and she showed up topless you bet I wouldn't be this reasonable about it."

It made so much _sense_. He hated her rationality for a moment, wishing she would do something normal and girly so he knew how to act around her.

***

If someone had found a way to take all of Maka's insecurities and personify them, they would look something like Blair—flawless skin, long dark hair, and boobs that each respectively looked like the size of Maka's head. The first thought she had on seeing Blair was that fate was really too cruel to taunt Maka with everything she didn't have: a perfect body, supernatural confidence, and a man so handsome she had thrown caution to the wind and come home with him like a lost puppy he'd fed. What an emotional idiot she was, no matter her pretentions towards purity of thought.

Soul's reaction to Blair, now that was something she could have studied all night. Actively avoiding looking at her, awkward excuses about why he shared a living space—there was something peculiar about it all but she didn't feel like he was necessarily hiding anything. If anything, he seemed far more worried about Maka being upset, and that was rather gratifying. It brought her hackles down just enough to keep her sitting on the couch instead of kicking down the door and stomping home.

"Just to clarify, if you two have some sort of arrangement, then I'll take my leave. I can't compete with her, nor would I want to, and I'm not the kind of person who can be so casual with my partners." She knew her words were cutting, edged with the temper she was firmly checking as much as possible.

Soul cringed, those lazy eyes of his blown wide as he seemed to process several levels of information at once visibly before his façade fell back into place. For all his studied carelessness, she wondered if he was a bit like her with wheels constantly turning in his mind.

"Don't get me wrong, no one has a bigger heart or more easygoing nature than Blair, but she doesn't exactly keep things exclusive. I'm not into sharing any more than I'm into playing the field."

Maka almost poked the hole in his logic that he hadn't actually qualified how much he liked sharing therefore she still couldn't come to any good conclusion about how much he liked playing the field, but decided to take the spirit of his words and give him a break. He was still blushing a little after all, and it made his complexion blotchy as his red eyes picked up highlights. The silence between them stretched as explosions on the TV in the background distracted them simultaneously.

"Partner, huh?" Maka cringed as his toothy grin was back in place, almost smug.

"I should probably head home, it's a bit of a walk." She needed to regroup and think things over, plus she was actually tired now that she was sober. A sound night of sleep would clarify everything, wiping away the hormonal fog that had gotten her into this weird situation in the first place.

"Stay and chill out a bit by the A/C, I can give you a ride home." He threw it out casually, but she was indecisive. On the one hand, staying around knowing Blair was in the other room made her feel awkward, but on the other hand… A/C.

Practicality won in the end. "Just for a little while, then I really need to head home. Even my clueless papa knows dinner doesn't take all night, and I just can't deal with his hysterics."

***

He didn't know at what point they both began to relax but he knew the moment the overloud laugh track of the late night sitcom woke him up that he had a very heavy blond skull putting almost painful pressure on a very precious piece of himself. It had been a kind of boring movie, to be sure, and the lull of the A/C was that little bit of white noise that had made him zone out, but Maka was full on passed out asleep and drooling on his leg. One of her shoes was still on, her foot hanging over the side of the couch, her other tucked underneath her. It seemed criminal to wake her, but it had to be done.

"Hey, hey Maka." He hadn't just hung out with a girl in a long time and he was surprised at how pleasant it had been. Black Star was always calling him an old man, between his reluctance to jump into bed with ladies and the white hair, and Soul wondered if there was some truth to it. Then Maka gave a breathy gasp and looked up at him with sleepy unseeing eyes, pigtails in disarray, and Soul realized he wasn't in his dotage yet as he pushed her off his lap with some haste.

"I'll grab you a helmet, we've got to get you home!" he pulled open the closet and used the opportunity to rearrange some things so she didn't think him the kind of perv to let her lay in his lap while he sported obvious wood. He liked his women conscious, thanks.

"Helmet?" She joined him, bag in hand, and accepted her jacket from him only to put it on mechanically. "What are you talking about?" Maka had a look to her that was mostly alert, and he was grateful he didn't have to drag her anywhere while too sleepy.

He gave a lopsided smile and wondered if this was going to be an issue. "I'm not letting you on my bike without one. Gotta protect all those expensive brains of yours. A college education doesn't mean shit if you scramble them on the pavement in the end."

"Soul," she said his name in that disappointed tone just like his ninth grade teacher, (who needed algebra now!) "I'm in a skirt. How am I supposed to ride a motorcycle?"

"Well," he said nonchalantly, "It will require essentially straddling me while I drive like a bat out of hell to get you home."

She wasn't digging this, he could tell, because her green eyes were so intent he was sure she had mapped out his psyche. He handed her the helmet and, never once breaking eye contact, she took it from him and jammed it on her head.

"I am only agreeing to this because I know my papa must be in a frenzy by now."

"It's not like he'd call out a manhunt for you or…." Something in her face, perhaps the total lack of humor at his offhand comment, told him the old guy just might.

Maka, fixing the straps on the helmet, commented on how when she was seventeen and had stayed out past her curfew that her father had called the cops to report her missing so many times they dispatched an actual officer to tell him that he had to wait at least a day before he tried to file a report. They were still trying to calm him down when Maka had arrived home. Her friend's car had blown a tire and it had taken ages to put the spare on, mostly her doing while her friend freaked out at the side of the road.

"You don't know what it's like getting a lecture from both your dad and the cops at the same time for being an hour and a half late." She spoke like the world had no justice in it as they made their way to the parking garage under his building.

The memory was obviously not as hilarious to her in retrospect as it should have been. Soul got into worse trouble with Black Star than that just about every weekend since they had become friends after their first fistfight. Maka's dad sounded like he was certifiable. Maybe he wouldn't walk her to her door when they got there.

Soul was getting ready to start the engine, Maka settling behind him, when he tilted his head back and finally got out what he had wanted to ask her all along:

"Wanna do something Friday? You should give me your number."

"Ok. Remind me when we get to my apartment. I've got my purse wedged between us pretty tightly." She answered like it was no big thing, and Soul was glad the vibrations of the bike effectively hid how hard his heart was pounding in his chest. He had done it, and she had said yes!

Later on, he would kick himself a thousand times for not using the word _date._


	3. Chapter 3

"… barely even the start of the fiscal year and already his expense reports are a mess. It's like he's purposefully hiding things just to see if I find them, why else would I have been called in to audit them?" Maka sighed into her chilled fruit juice as her friend nodded sympathetically. She had said she was a shrink or something when Soul had joined them at the restaurant, shaking his hand with a grip as firm as Black Star's even though the statuesque brunette was practically the polar opposite of his best friend. Typically, women who reminded him of Black Star were particularly frightening.

"Ah, Tsubaki, stop doing that! I didn't come here to talk about my problems…" Maka was slightly more animated tonight, clearly happy to be in the presence of her own best friend. Soul wasn't really feeling right about the whole situation, having arrived thinking it was a date and then realizing she had rolled him into some sort of standing thing with her friend. What did she think he had meant when he asked for her number? Smart people could be so dense sometimes.

The menu was all moderately priced and happy hour had packed the place to the gills. This whole arrangement wasn't exactly conductive to the kind of mood he had been hoping to set but as he sipped his beer he thought that it could have been worse. At least she wasn't pushing her friend at him, which would have been truly depressing.

"So what do you do, Soul?" Tsubaki turned gentle inquisitive eyes towards him. Lying would be poor form since he'd get caught out, so he bit the bullet and answered honestly.

"I do sound setups for film and stage productions. I tinker with lights, too, but I haven't been involved in anything at a small enough scale where I had to do both for a long time." Maka seemed to choke on her drink briefly, only to recover with a glance in his direction that wasn't quite murderous but seemed to imply bodily harm wasn't off the table. He didn't know why she was so wound up; he hadn't lied to her because she hadn't asked him anything about his work.

Tsubaki was all smiles. "You must really like the theater then, you get to see all the shows."

"Eh, after a while you're really just listening for cues and timing things out. I couldn't tell you what the last few things I managed were about, maybe broad ideas."

A waiter came around and Soul ordered some nachos for the table before excusing himself for a moment. He looked around for an open area but even the space near the bathrooms seemed to have people getting rapidly intoxicated for the evening in celebration of another week's work completed. In the end he had to duck outside, out of the regulated temperature and into the ongoing heat that glued his orange shirt to his ribs with sweat almost immediately. Taking his phone out of his pocket he grimly dialed a number he didn't think he'd have to this evening.

"What?" As always Black Star was a charmer.

"Hey, remember when I said that if you called me tonight I'd castrate you and feed it to some stray dogs?"

"Love you too, man." Loudly chewing on something, Black Star clearly had his mind on something else as Soul heard yelling and miscellaneous breaking noises coming from the other end of the line.

"Well, turns out I'm not on a date. And I need you to run interference on her friend for me so I can get her alone." More noises and silence as Soul wondered if Black Star had even heard him. Clearly he needed to sweeten the pot. "I'll pay for your food."

"And my booze?"

"I'm not _that_ desperate to get you here." Soul knew that Black Star could drink like a fish, and if it was on someone else's dime he drank twice as much.

It wasn't looking good, Black Star had probably arranged something stupid but entertaining with his actor buddies. It was a terrible thing for Black Star's maturity level that he had been orphaned at an early age with nothing but a trust fund and a chip on his shoulder to show for it. One of these days either the money or his luck would run out, and Soul was waiting for that shoe to drop.

"She's tall and she has big tits." Soul said with some disgust into the receiver.

"I'll be there in fifteen." Black Star replied quickly and hung up on him.

That took care of that. Tsubaki seemed like a nice enough lady, and Soul hated to sick his dastardly blue-haired friend on anyone undeserving, but he really needed more time with Maka and this was the most efficient way. Come hell or high water, Maka was going to have a date tonight whether she expected to or not.

***

"He's very handsome." Tsubaki said it conversationally, fishing for Maka's reaction. They had known one another too long for her to really get away with something like that.

"A little _too_ handsome." Maka replied. In his orange shirt and well fitted jeans Soul had instantly made every other man in the restaurant disappear from Maka's vision, but as women's heads turned on his way in she was reminded that he was probably out of her reach. Best to just firmly think of him as a nice new friend and not allow her hopes to rise too far. Mousy accountants didn't land dreamboat artists, that was obvious.

Ignoring her friend's constant negativity, Tsubaki placed a hand on her arm to shake Maka out of her internal loop. "You're gorgeous, Maka, and I'm shocked at how you underrate yourself still. You did this in college, even when guys were actively trying to hit on you. I think that I wouldn't be far off the mark to say that Soul was a little disappointed that I was here tonight."

"He made it perfectly clear he just want to hang out and be low key today, and I was already meeting you. This made sense."

"If you say so." Tsubaki sounded entirely unconvinced.

After some chitchat about how the week had gone for them, Soul made his appearance again with an apology for the delay and a mumble about lines for the bathroom. The nachos arrived shortly after he did, while Maka was grilling Tsubaki about her failed date from the weekend before. Soul ate some greasy chips and watched the interrogation from a safe distance.

"… and then he asked to come into my house as we were saying good evening and when I told him 'no' he burst into tears." She fiddled with the tip of her long dark ponytail, flipping the ends nervously against her knuckles as if even remembering it was stressful. "He was blubbering so loudly the neighbor's dog started to bark, and I'm sure it woke them up. But I wasn't about to do anything I wasn't ready to do. I tried to be nice about it… but then I had to block his number this week."

"You have to stop meeting people online, they've all been crazy." Maka's eyed Soul and nudged him with her shoulder, obviously looking for him to back her up in comforting her friend. A feeling that could only be guilt was causing the chips to turn in his stomach as he glanced at the clock and wondered how long until Black Star got here. He might have made a grave miscalculation.

"It can't be that hard for a pretty girl like you to meet someone. Not everyone is like Maka, over here who apparently just wants to fight with other girls on the weekends."

"I just said I was _thinking_ about kickboxing." The focus was supposed to be on Tsubaki and Maka began to squirm as Soul continued to pick on her.

Seeing that he had hit a nerve, Soul took out some of his frustration on his new 'friend'. "I mean, Tsubaki, you're clearly dressed like you want to go out and have fun tonight whereas I see someone didn't change from their work suit except for some remarkably masculine boots."

"They support my ankles better!"

"…And that hairdo that practically screams elementary school."

"I find pigtails very comfortable, you don't have long hair so you don't get to judge." Having had enough of being prodded by Soul's words she finally shot back. "And you're just reeling in the ladies looking like a pumpkin. Between your red eyes and orange shirt you're about as inconspicuous as an amber alert."

"Maybe I wanted to be noticed." His tone had changed from teasing to something else, and it gave her just enough pause that she wondered if Tsubaki had been right and Soul had wanted to spend time with her alone tonight.

"Well step in line, my friend because the party has arrived! I, Black Star, will astound you with my charisma and masculine charm." Soul watched as Maka's eyes just about rolled back into her head as Black Star pulled up a chair next to Tsubaki and gave her a textbook leer. "Soul, you didn't tell me you'd be having drinks with a stone cold fox. I don't blame you for wanting all the women to yourself, but denying me access to this lady is sacrilegious!"

Giving Soul a glare that just about screamed _what is this idiot doing here_, Maka tried to divert attention away from her blushing friend and onto herself if only to save Tsubaki the trouble of stammering through polite conversation with the oaf.

"What a coincidence! What an amazingly _unbelievable_ coincidence! Don't you work on the weekends? I imagine the bars pay a lot better when they are full of people."

"Pssh, I don't get paid to work there, I just run lines and sell drinks a few days a week because a friend of mine owns the building and hasn't found anyone for those slow day shifts. If I allowed my greatness to shine there it would be so busy I wouldn't have time to get the rest of my shit done!" Black Star was talking to Maka but still had his eyes stuck on Tsubaki who was blushing under the intense attention. Soul knew his friend to be as subtle as a brick through a window, but he was coming on stronger than usual.

With a shy laugh, Tsubaki asked Black Star what he meant by 'running lines' and then the frenetic actor was word vomiting about his current projects, his opinion on the directors of said projects, and how she should come see said projects frequently and sequentially. He was laying it on thick, even for Black Star, and completely ignoring Maka's attempts to interrupt while he totally captivated her friend. Either Tsubaki was a really excellent actress herself, or she was actually listening and enjoying the stream of self-aggrandizing nonsense that was Black Star's stock in trade. Wouldn't that be something if Black Star was hitting it off with her despite his many, glaring, nearly insurmountable flaws?

Suddenly turning on Soul, anger born of frustration written all over her face, Maka snapped, "So neither of you work in the bar? Was anything true?! Is Soul even your name?!"

"Soul Eater Evans. That's still my name, here." He grabbed his wallet from his back pocket and handed his ID over to Maka for her inspection. Black Star laughed loudly at his own joke in the background, making her cringe, but then she was intently examining Soul's personal information the next moment.

"Geez, it isn't that interesting."

"I was just thinking that you don't take very good pictures."

"Ouch. Well, they always ask me to smile—so I do—then they usually tell me really quickly to stop smiling. And at about that point that's when they take the picture. It's always the same expression."

Finally calming down from the shock to the system that Black Star always caused in reasonable people, she seemed to warm up a little again. "That's not very nice of them; sure your teeth are a little unusual, but I don't think it's right that they make you feel bad about them."

"I stopped getting mad about it a long time ago. People can say whatever they want."

"Well, you can bet if someone ever says something derogatory about your teeth in my hearing they'll get a lot more than a shrug from me." She hated the idea that anyone was out there making Soul feel like less of a person, and told herself that her vehemence was about justice. Everyone deserved to feel good in their own skin.

Even though the idea of Maka fighting his battles for him was ridiculous, Soul still found himself charmed. When was the last time anyone really went to bat for him for anything? Her willingness to take on the world seemed like an exhausting philosophy, but he admired her conviction. A little disturbed by the sappy turn of his thoughts, Soul deflected his awkwardness by insulting her playfully.

"I suppose that means I need to defend your horrible fashion choices, in which case no deal."

Maka was finally starting to understand that he was teasing her, but she still didn't like the digs at her clothes. Everything she bought was nice quality, well-fitted, very practical, and more than a little expensive.

"These clothes are perfectly nice for meeting friends for dinner."

"About that…"

Black Star stood up, and walked around the side of the table. Tsubaki was right behind, a head taller than him in her heels. If she didn't know better, Maka would say her friend was glowing, but that couldn't be right. The loudmouthed idiot informed Soul and a stunned Maka that he and Tsubaki were going to go get some real food in a place that wasn't full of peons unworthy to share his airspace. Knowing Black Star loved crowds since that was merely many more chances to be noticed, Soul wondered what Black Star's game was but wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth either.

"Do you want to follow them?" Soul picked at the leavings of the nachos while Maka tracked the progress of the pair on the way out into the city evening.

Shaking her head Maka let him know that before she became a counselor Tsubaki had been an amateur MMA fighter, nothing televised just for the fun of competition. Every piece of her body was a weapon, plus she had at least 20 pounds on Black Star no matter how much muscle he seemed to boast.

"I have a hard time thinking the lady that just happily walked out with the world's leading authority on how great Black Star is… is a fighter."

"How do you think we met?" Maka turned bright eyes to him, and Soul wondered if maybe he'd never know as much about Maka as he thought he did. As soon as she seemed simple she would turn a corner and he'd lose track of who she was again.

"So you met your best friend in an MMA gym? I thought you met in college."

Maka thought back to those days when all she wanted to do was beat the living tar out of someone. Men had been an evil source of unhappiness, proven by how her mother had abandoned their family due to her father's philandering. Getting drunk at parties where the point was to hook up with guys seemed extra pointless in that context. MMA had seemed like a good solution, even though pretty much no one was light enough to be paired with her. Tsubaki had patiently instructed her in striking since she couldn't maneuver through the groundwork very well, and when they had later run into one another on campus it had been a delightful surprise.

"Not a lot of overlap between psych classes and economics. We didn't even realize we went to the same school for months and months." It was weird now that Tsubaki and Black Star had left, as if the mass of people and Soul's unwavering attention combined were slowly pressing in on her. "I think I want to get out of here, if that's ok. Do you have anywhere you'd like to go?"

It was just the kind of opening he had hoped she would leave him, and Soul nodded affirmatively as he slapped some money down on the table. When she insisted that she should pay because she probably made more than he did anyway, Soul firmly ignored how effectively she had cut his pride into bite sized pieces and forced her to put her wallet away. It might have been true, but he was going to keep operating under date parameters until she wrapped her big brain around what was up.

"It's the least I can do in apology for having a friend like Black Star."


	4. Chapter 4

"So… Eater huh?"

Maka was fluffing up her hair after it had been effectively compacted under the helmet. With two black hairbands around one wrist, Soul knew he would be treated to more of her childish hair styling but he didn't even have it in him to be wistful that she would primp for him a bit. After all, she had gladly tolerated twenty minutes of riding behind him with her legs practically wrapped around him. It had almost been a shame when he had finally parked and escorted her towards the club.

"Ah, thought I had gotten away with that one." Soul rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

"I had a lot of time to think while I was attempting to ignore all the road noise. You're going to go deaf with a motorcycle that loud." They marched forward just a little, as the line moved into the building. It would only be a couple minutes now, and he knew once he was in it would only be a few words to the manager before they had a nice table in the corner.

"Turns out I've been difficult since before I was born. I don't know what they gave my mother to help her out, but apparently it was strong and it lingered a bit. Seems 'Ethan' and 'Eater' sound close enough when you're hopped up on drugs." He huffed a little, tired of telling the story in some ways but also happy to share something with Maka that let her know he didn't just spring into existence with a ridiculous name.

While Soul talked, Maka had to forcibly remove her eyes from roving around his face and body. Sighing, she wondered if maybe this was some sort of attempt at fate laughing at her. Had she decried her papa all those years, only to have wonton feelings for a practical stranger? It would be harder to take a firm moral stance if she started flirting shamelessly now.

"Did you get teased much?"

"No worse than Death the Kid."

"That's someone's name?" Maka didn't want to believe that a parent would be so blindly cruel as to do that to someone.

"Mostly we just call him Kid. One of Black Star's trust fund buddies, but he's a good guy. Us guys with funny names have to stick together." He allowed the implications that he hadn't come from money persist. Old blood and old money hadn't done him any good in the past.

Soul handed some money to man at the door, and escorted Maka to the coat check where he handed over his jacket and helmet along with her jacket under the same ticket. He knew he looked a mess, white hair sticking out at all angles, having insisted Maka use the one helmet he'd brought. The weird looks they got from everyone just made him bear his fearsome teeth at people in a mockery of a smile. The intimidation tactic effectively kept people at a distance, but the regular staff there ignored him, too used to him to care much.

"Hold on, give me just a minute."

Soul left Maka near the entrance and disappeared into a door marked 'employees only' in chipped gold lettering. Taking the opportunity to take a look around, she noted that everything was very dark and very red. On a stage in a corner a woman was singing something strangely familiar, but Maka couldn't tell where she had heard it before. A man on a large base, some horns, and a drummer were backing the woman up with a lazy beat that Maka was nodding to absently. People were sipping cocktails and nodding along as well, looking genteel and effortlessly cool. That was Soul's scene then: motorcycles, rich friends, and jazz clubs? It all seemed very contrary to his apartment and his way of interacting with people. With a huffing laugh she wondered what his game was, but until she figured him out a little better she'd enjoy his company and not worry too much about her attraction.

A hand slipped into hers and she turned wide eyes up at Soul who was pulling her in the direction of a darkened corner that had been roped off. Despite resolving to shove those complicated feelings to the side, she could feel the shiver run down her spine at the touch of his skin. Why holding her hand was more intimate than before when she had been practically attached at the hip to him on the ride over…

"I knew they'd be saving a table or two, and the party who're coming isn't going to be here for another hour or so. When a different table opens up we can move in on it, but in the meantime…" Soul pulled her into near darkness, the air conditioning no longer a match for Maka's steadily rising internal temperature.

"Can you get me some ice water?" She was proud her voice hadn't squeaked. Soul had dropped her hand to pull out a chair for her, like a real gentleman, and then walked through the room like an orange beacon to get them water at the bar.

Maka looked a little flushed, and he worried something had happened while he had been negotiating with the squeaky voiced woman who owned the club. Turns out being spontaneous and not making reservations was fine most of the time, but the weekends were busy for a cool room with cool jazz. He was lucky they weren't standing at the bar.

"Grab me some water, will ya?" Soul never had a problem being noticed and therefore served quickly. Something about being the sore thumb in any room.

"Evans, I see you're on your way to sulking in a corner like usual, but with company." The bartender with the spikey hair and overdeveloped muscles grabbed two glasses and filled them with ice. "If I didn't know better I'd say you looked happy, but that can't be right."

Automatically Soul let his blasé expression hood his eyes, defense mechanisms rising. "Reaching for those tips tonight, Free?"

The shrug Free gave looked like it was about to pop the seams of his uniform dress shirt and red brocade vest. Soul had never been fond of pushy people who thought they knew what was best for him. Interactions with the club bartender had degraded from civil to moderately antagonistic in the last year or two he had been coming here. Some personalities just didn't match up well.

Maka watched as people tracked Soul's progress through the club. Maybe that's how you got used to attention: by totally ignoring everyone. Being known for your brain was a pretty neat trick and she had exploited it by sliding through life fairly respected and fairly well liked and fairly good friends with lots of people, but also entirely inconspicuous. Purposefully standing out had seemed like a conceit for the Black Stars of the world—the loud, pushy, egotistical people who wanted to hear their own voice the loudest in any room. That bartender who was clearly pissing Soul off fit in with that crowd, why else would he get an eye tattoo? Those procedures were ridiculously unsafe. Soul, on the other hand, seemed to have been born with all the tools to be the center of attention and didn't appear to want it much. She respected that he had at least made a decision about it consciously.

"When you look at me like that I feel like you're taking an MRI of my brain or something." Soul grumbled and took a seat next to her so they could see the band together. His arm brushed against hers accidentally as he was getting settled and it took force of will not to jump straight out of her chair.

"That would be really useful, if I could."

"You don't think it would be gross? Seeing people's insides like that?"

"I think it would be fascinating. To know that much about someone just by looking at them… but then I would be in the wrong line of work entirely." Maka took a deep drink from her glass and tried to keep her eyes forward. She had to look casual, he obviously felt people who stared at him for no reason were only worthy of disdain.

"What do you mean?"

"Clearly I'd have to go into medicine, or something that made having that talent useful to the rest of the world." Across the room, the set was ending and the band was acknowledging the polite claps of the guests before they took their break. "It would weigh too heavy on my mind to have a useful talent and not do my best to help people with it."

Soul laughed at her, more a snort into his glass. "And you got into accounting because of all the good you can do for people."

"My dad forbade me from enrolling in the police academy. Accounting is more like the family business." Maka delivered the line without humor but Soul nearly did a spit take anyway, cursing and dabbing his napkin against his pants. "Why does everyone do that? I would have been a great police officer."

"I'm not convinced you can stay fully upright on a windy day, and you think some crusty old captain was going to let you be a beat cop?" Soul was horrified by the idea of Maka fighting crime, but the way her eyes burned with total sincerity he wondered if maybe it could have worked out. With the right partner, of course, someone strong to have her back while she ripped confessions out of people. The idea of her putting herself into harm's way, though, that scared the shit out of him.

Covering up his alarm he began to laugh. The punch she landed on his arm was solid and particularly painful, which only made him laugh harder. Realizing that laughing at her life's thwarted ambition was not the best idea when one is trying to date said woman, he cut himself off with a cough and tried to change the subject.

"I thought I was going to be a concert pianist." The angry lines of her face softened a little and she actually turned towards him just enough that their knees almost touched. Seeing that her curiosity was winning her over, he continued. "I had talent, and plenty of drive… for a while. But at a certain point I didn't want it for myself, I wanted it to prove to other people that I could do it." It had made him heartsick to realize that, and he had never really gotten over the rage he felt at himself for allowing that familial manipulation to go on as long as it did. The bitterness was seeping into his words, he couldn't stop it, but Maka absorbed all those negative feelings impassively. He had her full attention and it was intoxicating.

"I wasn't a prodigy or anything—I know some actual musical geniuses—but I could have made up the difference in grit. I was already starting to get wrist injuries in middle school, which is pretty fucked up when I think about it. My dad was so damn proud that I practiced until it hurt and then past that…." It had been the only real talking point during one of the many after parties that Soul had sat through while bored out of his mind. _He'd rather play piano than eat or breathe…_ It wasn't something to glamorize.

"I won't ask you to play for me." Maka interrupted his dark trip down memory lane by covering one of his hands with hers. "Your playing was fantastic, but I would never ask more of someone than they wanted to give."

The blush was completely the fault of his body, which was not listening to his brain at all that there was no reason to blush from a girl holding your hand. Shit, even the way she spoke sounded like a promise. Wedding vows were said with less sincerity than Maka poured into talking to a friend.

"I told my family to go to hell and dropped music entirely. Moved out a week later." He hated her pity, so he added. "I moved in with Black Star at first, things weren't that bad except his apartment always smells like body spray and sweat. That lasted until I wanted to kill him, so like a month."

She hadn't let go of his hand, running her small fingers over his knuckles absently. Her callouses teased the soft skin there and some switch in his mind flipped from moderately angry to moderately horny. That tight, hot feeling swept through him like an unchecked wildfire and there was nothing he wanted more than to go back to his place with her for something more active than bad TV. If he wanted her this bad from just holding her hand how amazing would it be to steal a kiss?

"Wes, buddy! You said you were out of town!" Maka suddenly let go with a jolt and watched the large man who had intruded on their table with polite curiosity.

His blood still running hot, Soul wished his annoyed glare could flay skin from bodies. "Who the hell are you?!"

"Don't be like that Wes, it's your old buddy Trent! Why just the other day… uh…" The man narrowed his eyes at Soul who was now baring his teeth in a distinctive predatory sneer. The man recovered pretty quickly, mostly unfazed. "Holy shit kid, has anyone told you that you look _just like_ Wes Evans except for the, well, haha you know…"

Completely not reading the danger signs the stranger barreled on. "You've got to be related… he's got a little brother right? Wes'll just die when he finds out that—"

"We've got to get going," Soul, who looked about as far from happy as a person could, rudely stood and marched straight out with Maka in tow. She managed to sneak in a few more sips of water before finding Soul slapping down the coat check ticket. In the other room the jazz was starting up again and the hum of conversation died down as people enjoyed the music. It would have been nice to relax a little more. Riding on his motorcycle made her fear for his life, since he insisted she wear the one helmet he brought.

"Hey, hey," Maka tugged at Soul's sleeve as he stood on the hot sidewalk and fumed. Outside of the club it was a sauna, but she didn't want to get on the bike while he was angry. That seemed like a recipe for disaster. "Let's walk around a little. I could go for something cold and sweet and I see a corner store that way."

There were a lot of confusing things about being an only child. Maka never could empathize with how people talked about their siblings as a simultaneous rival and ally. There was no one to compete with, or bond with, as she was growing up. The name Wes Evans was firing neurons in her mind as she put together the clues. Taking a leap in logic while he brooded and walked next to her on the way to the store, Maka folded her jacket over her arm and spoke absently almost to the sky.

"You know my papa made me go to an all-girls private school. He thought it would protect me from the 'filthy monsters'—his term for teenage boys." Soul snorted at that, so at least she knew he was listening. The knuckles clutching his helmet were white so she knew he was still fuming a bit in silence. "The time I remember being the most embarrassed by him is when he insisted on helping me go dress shopping for a senior dance I had agreed to go to with some friends. There were going to be boys there, and he wanted to make sure the dress I ended up in was so frumpy no one would look at me twice."

The memory, of the saleswomen cooing over what a sweet dad he was to want to take her shopping, and how he had leveraged a rare day she thought she might actually enjoy his company into another chance to pick up women still got her goat.

"I remember I got so angry I didn't buy anything and then, since I didn't have a dress and I was so embarrassed that I had trusted my papa to help me do something so important only to fail… I told everyone I had food poisoning and spent the whole evening in my room reading books and eating ice cream." In the way his awkward truth had reeled her in at the club, her awkward truth was bringing Soul both physically and mentally closer to Maka. His empty hand brushed hers a few times as they walked and Maka didn't even want to move away.

Soul finally seemed to get his nerve up and grabbed her hand despite the still warm evening air. "Sorry this is such a shitty first date."

Maka's shock was on par with someone hypothetically telling her that her papa had become a monk and taken a vow of celibacy.

"You know who Wes Evans is, I assume?"

"Kinda…?" She hadn't totally recovered from the date revelation, but Maka was used to rolling with the punches and her mind was wrapping around it quickly.

"You're kidding right?" Soul gave her a look that betrayed a hint of egotism on par with Black Star's. "He's a pretty hot commodity in the music world right now. I thought you couldn't turn a corner in this town without running into some sort of promotion for his next tour. Women throw panties at him and all he does is play violin. It's crazy."

Maka shrugged. "I don't keep up with music much. I have a little music and a lot of books."

"But you know who he is."

"Now that you explain it a little I kind of remember. Isn't your mother a singer and your dad…"

"…A composer." Soul sighed, squeezing her hand but not letting go even though they were both getting sweaty. The Evans name was old money but even worse they were famous and talented old money. Nothing like being the one weird looking mediocre one in a family of beautiful musical geniuses. Jealousy used to eat at him, but here with Maka it just didn't seem as important somehow.

"Interesting." Maka took a few steps and then they stopped together in front of the store. "So tell me more about what you do. Kind of sounds like being a combination of an artist and an electrician. Have you ever been shocked…?"

The bell rang as Maka entered the shop and motioned for him to follow. Stunned, Soul realized that to Maka his family was no big thing. As he followed her in he reflected briefly on the fact that he had called it a date and she hadn't argued. Soul considered it a hopeful sign.

***

The clunk of the helmet echoed in the empty hallway, and Maka felt her brain catalog it carefully but unconsciously as it rolled away from them. She was honestly amazed she was thinking anything at all, a little analytical voice in her head staying aloof from the rest of her, because currently she had two tight handfuls of Soul's orange shirt balled up in her fists. She was using the leverage from that to keep him tightly pinned outside of the door of her apartment while she opened her mouth over his in a way that would not incorrectly have been termed pornographic.

It had been a good evening. They had walked around until the sun had set, and then returned to his jazz club to enjoy the music and relax while Soul told stories about growing up with Black Star and Kid. Seems like too much testosterone in any given room resulted in hijinks, and from the way he looked a little too pleased she wondered if they had really outgrown the stupid adventures and posturing yet. From the way Soul practically growled at the bartender when he went to get her a glass of wine, she thought perhaps not.

They dropped by his place briefly to grab another helmet (Maka insisted) and then took a ride around the lively weekend nightscape of the city. Having talked more than she was used to earlier, she was glad for the time to just reflect and enjoy the wind rushing past.

Mostly she reflected about compromise:

A week ago would she have ridden a motorcycle? No.

A week ago would she have gone to a stranger's home? No.

A week ago would she have given even a second thought to her lack of intimacy recently? … a certain amount of denial had to be acknowledged there… but No.

At what point do you toss aside convictions in place of intuition? She wouldn't have found herself in this situation except he had insisted that he walk her to her door. Maka was smart enough to know that it would probably end with a kiss, and she had mentally braced herself for how it would go: Soul would walk her up the three flights of stairs even though they were tired (and mostly because her building's elevator was still under maintenance), he would no doubt make one more dig at her messy hair that she had stubbornly kept in pigtails the whole night even though her hair had gotten increasingly tangled, and then he would find a suitably spontaneous moment to lean in and do the veritable deed.

Mechanically, as Soul proceeded to meet her expectations, Maka experienced that grim satisfaction she felt when she balanced accounts. Then, as his lips met hers tentatively, a feeling not unlike what drove her to fight flared to life and instinct obliterated reason. With something she could only term as a growl she grabbed him by the shirt and pivoted so that he just about slammed into her door, and then slanted her mouth up against his with enough force that she had to swallow his gasp.

Coming up for air long enough to register his wide, bright eyes and shuddering controlled breaths, she dropped his shirt and caged him by bracing her arms on either side of him against the door.

"I'm not inviting you inside tonight, just so you know. Not because I don't want to, but because I don't think it's right yet." Being both decisive and principled had never felt so crappy as the sharp words that escaped her were practically contradicted by the way she let his fingers dip past the waistband of her skirt and caress her hips.

"Whatever you want." Soul was trying to calm his breathing, and just enough blood returned to his brain that he could find the humor in the situation. Even though he wasn't a sexually adventurous man, Maka's casually dominating pose was doing things to him that made him wonder if she had just discovered a whole new realm he hadn't suspected he wanted to experience.

Now that she didn't have her arms between them anymore, Soul took the opportunity to pull her flush against him. Her hands dropped away from the door and fell to her sides as he let her feel up close how he was equally willing to spend the night, even if he wanted to respect her decision to wait a bit. Jumping into bed, no matter how good an idea it seemed right now with desire singing siren songs in his mind, might lead to regrets. She was already too valuable to him to lose her this early.

But he'd be damned if he had to wait too long. As it was he'd need either a cold shower tonight or fifteen minutes alone in a hot one.

At their finest moment, Soul's tongue mapping out Maka's teeth, and her hands firmly roaming under his shirt and pouring more fuel on his fire, he felt the door give way behind him. Taking the only action he could think of that would protect her, Soul thrust Maka away suddenly and watched her sway on her feet as he made his swift backwards descent.

After the starburst of pain Soul looked up into the face of an extremely handsome and extremely irate man holding an umbrella with the business end pointed at his throat. A strikingly similar angry expression was beginning to cross Maka's face in the hallway when Soul's view was completely obscured by the fact that the umbrella popped open. Plain black with a company logo—he could already tell it was Maka's.

"I've got the rapist cornered, Maka, get the police on the phone!"

Frustrated lust so easily redirected into anger, Maka realized belatedly, as she had to take a shaky breath and remind herself that murdering a family member for essentially cockblocking would not stand up in court.

"Papa, stop acting like an idiot this instant and put that away! You're making a scene."

The umbrella swiveled away from Soul's face as the older man (who looked young enough to be her brother) faced Maka with a stern look that didn't quite match his daughter's gorgon-esque stare but seemed plenty determined.

"You were the one making a scene! All I could see through the peephole was white hair, but then I distinctly heard you say 'help' so—"

"That's a bald faced lie, you know better than anyone what kissing someone sounds like. Maybe it looked off to you because he doesn't have a wife lurking around somewhere ready to lop my face off." She turned on Soul, her electric anger terrifying. "Do you?!"

"No!" All the tension left Soul's body as soon as her baleful gaze moved back to her dad, and Soul felt his head drop back against the floor painfully. Clearly, she had some things to work out with her dad still. He picked himself up slowly and watched Maka snipe at her father while the man began to blubber about just doing what was best for her, all the while shooting dangerous glares in Soul's direction when he thought Maka couldn't see.

While the Albarns were lighting into one another, Soul found the helmet that he had dropped in the hallway when Maka had practically sucked his tongue out of his head, and smiled fondly at it. Good memories to take home, even if he might be nursing a concussion. He also found his jacket on the floor next to the door and wondered how Maka had slid it off of him because he hadn't even noticed he wasn't wearing it until now. She might be small but she sure was quick, and she knew how to leverage her weight well. Soul waited off to the side for a couple minutes until there was a lull in the argument and inserted himself.

"Hey, I'm headed home. See you later, Maka." That seemed sufficiently casual, betraying none of his deep disappointment that their intimate moment had been interrupted by her insane father.

"Nooooooooo!" Her father cried from inside the apartment.

"You don't get to decide who I date, you're leaving by next weekend anyway!" She snapped over her shoulder and into the apartment, and then turned to Soul with an apology written all over her face. "This is not how I wanted tonight to end. We'll get to try again, I hope?"

For someone so tough, she could surely have some terrifically vulnerable moments, and Soul was happy he was in a position to protect her this time around. It felt right.

"How's tomorrow night looking for you?" He said it with half a smile playing against his lips, his dry humor tickling him that he was honestly eager to see her again and he hadn't even left yet.

The relief she betrayed for a moment was all the answer he needed, but she followed it up with a nod. "You mean tonight, technically."

Soul just smiled at her as he turned to take the three long flights back to where he had parked on the street. It was a smile that didn't leave his face until he flopped into bed, totally forgetting about the mighty bruise on the back of his head. He was happy Blair's room was on the other side of the apartment or else it might have woken her up when he started loudly cursing overprotective red haired idiots.


	5. Chapter 5

Soul knew it was ridiculous to be nervous about seeing Maka. He had grown up casually associating with senators and movie stars, venture capitalists and political puppeteers, and yet that skinny accountant stripped his veneer. It completely didn't help that in the space of less than twenty-four fucking hours Black Star, usually aloof when it came to women, had become attached to the hip of her best friend. He had called Black Star to ask about their camping trip next weekend only to be told that they had to move it back because Tsubaki had a family thing a state over and he was going with her. Since when did Tsubaki's availability have anything to do with Black Star?!

It was like Maka had leveraged a slim blade right to the heart of his life and was twisting it. The change had been so fast he wasn't sure he was excited or frightened, but there wasn't any hiding from it now that it had gained momentum. Examining himself in the mirror wearing one of the two suits he owned, Soul searched his own tired eyes for a solution to a problem he wasn't sure existed. The slim red line near his chin where he had cut himself shaving earlier stood out to him as just another symptom, normally he never had a problem shaving quickly. If he had inadvertently bled on his shirt it wouldn't have mattered to him, it was dark red already and as close to his eye color as the unconscionably expensive tailor could find. Another slow breath found him slightly calmer than he had been moments before.

This was his recital outfit. Not the same one, obviously, since he had shot up a few inches since he quit his professional trajectory at sixteen, but it was a carbon copy from the same tailor. When he had been invited to a family function two years ago he had decided to wear something that would really stick in his dad's craw. Nothing like giving the family the middle finger without saying a word, but too bad he had felt like a heel the whole evening under his mother's disappointed gaze. It wasn't their fault he was simply good at music instead of amazing, and they had largely supported his decisions with only slight pity echoing in their obligatory check-in phone calls. Someday he'd have to grow the fuck up and stop pretending like they were the enemy. Teenage rebellion was for teens, and it didn't wear any more comfortably over time than his old wardrobe.

"Here goes nothing," he said to himself in the mirror, and ran his tongue over the points of his teeth, searching for any stray lunch one more time before picking Maka up. Not that she'd probably care even if she did notice something.

"Soul! You've been in there forever!" Blair gave an expressive whine at the end to match her complaining tone from the other side of the door. He heard her twist the knob and was grateful once again this was one room in this place that locked. The woman had no idea of how personal privacy functioned, he swore.

He took another slow breath and braced himself with studied indifference which usually deflected most of Blair's most intrusive personality traits, only to see her study him with casually hungry eyes rather than rush into the now vacant bathroom, a towel slung over her shoulder.

"You look good enough to eat! Maka will be happy." Soul couldn't stifle the twitch at Maka's name, and Blair gave him a feline grin at his tell. "You know my door is always open…"

"Nope. Take it easy, Blair." Soul had turned down Blair's casual offers so many times they barely even registered anymore. She didn't mean anything by it, it was just her way. He gave her a wave as he walked away and headed back to his room to dig out the unfamiliar keys from the mess on his dresser where he had tossed them earlier. It was weird to be driving a car, let alone one of Wes' cars, but it had been a standing offer from his brother and for this evening he thought Maka would appreciate something more traditional.

Not that he doubted for a second she'd be game for riding on his motorcycle wearing just about anything, but he didn't really want to ruin his suit before the evening began. But the thought of those long legs wrapped around him was tempting enough to send a wave of wistful longing careening through his brain.

***

"Is your friend running some kind of cult?!" Maka burst out from her apartment, hair loosely piled on her head, her sleeveless black dress perfectly fitted to her as the flair of the loose skirt on the bottom swished around her knees. Papa had gone out for the evening to one of his girlfriends' houses to sulk about his daughter dating a 'no good demon-eyed thug' and Maka had been grateful for an afternoon to herself.

But.

Normally, when Maka was having complicated thoughts and she needed to bounce ideas off of someone Tsubaki was right there to spend an hour on speakerphone with her. Today, it had been more like thirty minutes, with about every fifth sentence punctuated by Black Star interrupting to talk to Tsubaki about whatever stupid home improvement thing he was apparently trying to complete at her house. It sounded like he had broken a door (the TMI moment came when Maka realized it was the bedroom door based on his less than subtle hints) and was trying to reattach it, but it seemed like whenever he wasn't directly talking to Tsubaki he was loudly talking to himself. Secondhand Black Star was just as annoying as in person Black Star.

"I swear he's running a cult, because nothing short of brainwashing could explain why Tsubaki is, from what I suspect, still spending time with him!" Maka smoothed her hands down her skirt to calm her rapid heartbeat. Even though she had worked herself into a fine state of irritation about the Black Star situation, she had already been on edge anticipating tonight. Soul had arrived looking like a model, with his perfectly tailored pinstripe suit and feral grin.

"He may talk about himself like he's a god, but I don't think he actually believes it." Soul paused a moment, thinking. "_Probably._"

"Not helping." Maka grumbled and locked her door, fumbling with the keys more than she expected to and feeling a lone bead of sweat tumble from her hair line down her back. Soul was in a suit and he didn't look troubled at all, making the case for buying an air conditioner more eloquently than all her papa's emotional blackmail. "No helmet, I see, are we walking? These aren't walking shoes but I can get some quickly."

Soul actually offered her his arm, startling her with his chivalry. Everything about this setup felt like it was from another era. "I've got a car on loan for tonight. Since you decided to try out a proper hairstyle I figured the least I could do was take you on a proper date."

Her first instinct was to slap him on the shoulder, but he locked their arms together more firmly and laughed as she struggled against him a bit. As they reached the staircase and he was forced to relinquish her arm Maka made sure to get her punch in, only making him laugh harder. She was glad she got to go first so she could take the time to school her wide smile back into something more dignified. No one should think they could get the drop on an Albarn, even in jest.

The light material of her dress rustled on the way down the stairs and Maka felt her stomach flutter as she worried for the eighteenth time that day that wearing the dress with the sheer fabric around the shoulders and collar was a good idea. It was providing her enough coverage for modesty while still allowing her skin to breathe, but it required the wearer (i.e. Maka) to go braless. Tsubaki had barely weighed in on Maka's moral dilemma before she had had to go, and without her grounded friend's opinion Maka tended to do whatever she felt like was a good idea at the time.

Pretty soon she was sinking into a leather seat while frigid air blew over her damp skin and made her shiver involuntarily. Too late to head back and change now.

"So where are we going?" The car smelled new, but nothing in it implied rental, so she let herself relax a little. Maka hated rental cars because she knew there would be a checklist of items to cover before returning one and she couldn't leave something alone when she knew there were expectations to be met. No question left unanswered, or checklist item undone for her own peace of mind.

"I went to this place to hear music a while ago, big band stuff a little poppier than I usually go for but they do standards well," From a previous conversation she had learned that while he wasn't going to say that people who listened to pop music were idiots, it remained an unspoken assumption. "But what makes this place different is they have a dance floor. It's mostly old people and nostalgia geeks, but at least it isn't some mosh pit for people to flail around like they're about to start speaking in tongues."

"Is there food there?" Maka had assumed they'd have dinner first and was a little peckish.

"There are drinks? I'll get you a cocktail with lots of fruit in it." Soul must have glanced over to see Maka's deeply suspicious arched eyebrow because he added quickly. "I figured we'd eat something when it got a little cooler. The restaurants are packed to the gills at this time, and I hate fighting crowds."

That seemed reasonable enough that she didn't feel like picking a fight about being hungry, but she was also wary of drinking on an empty stomach. Soul looked too good, and she knew it wouldn't take too large of a push to throw her morals out the car window and pull him into the back seat, borrowed car or no.

The low lights were less a function of design a more a function of old fixtures, Soul figured. It was a new enough building that his grandparents could have attended the grand opening, if they weren't so choked on their own importance and money to stoop to associating with the masses, but it seemed entirely possible not one improvement had been made since. He liked the old art and the almost impossible to navigate table setup on multiple levels. Most of all he liked the huge stage, where the band of the night was reaching the end of something slow that would have been the bees knees when this was a new club.

"So what do you think?" Maka had been silent too long, assessing the room with darting eyes. It was deeply embarrassing to him that he actually cared about her opinion of this place, like he had bared another piece of his inner self and if she found it unworthy she found him unworthy. Something that Black Star had been telling him for years basically boiled down to 'fuck 'em' when it came to other people's opinions, but Soul had yet to perfect absolute detachment. Honestly, he didn't think Black Star had detached from people as well as he had claimed either.

Risk assessment was always on the top of Maka's mind. She spotted the exits, she scanned the crowd for anyone that looked suspicious, and she easily identified a couple of empty tables that would allow her back to be to the wall. These thoughts were followed, as usual, by a deep shame that her mother had taught her to think like this. Kami's decision to get a divorce, join the military, and take as many foreign postings as possible had separated her from the family thoroughly and pretty finally but her legacy lived on. Verdict: nothing in this room was more likely to harm her than Soul.

"I don't think there's anything in here that catches my attention more than you." Maka replied honestly. They both blushed as Maka lamented at how weird that was to say and Soul reflected on how that was the kind of line a cool guy like him should have used on her. She added, lamely, cheeks still blazing. "I mean, a red shirt, honestly. You look like you could have stepped out of an old movie about gangsters."

"They always know how to dress, so I'll take that as a compliment."

The music ceased and there was polite clapping the turned into a light buzz of conversation. There was a higher level of energy here than when they had gone to his tiny jazz club the evening before, and as the musicians began to play something more up tempo, people took to the floor to dance. With a sinking feeling, Maka realized they were actually dancing, not just swaying to a fro hand in hand. Fighting and dancing couldn't be too dissimilar, right?

"You don't know how to dance, do you?" Soul said right next to her ear, electrifying her spine. He was lucky she didn't hit him. The smirk in his voice was palpable.

"I haven't been to a dance where I had a partner since middle school. And that was more swaying in a circle." Her nervousness startled an honest answer out of her.

Soul caught the eye of a hostess who led them to an empty table, but kept his focus on Maka who was imperfectly hiding her nervousness. "Any middle school boyfriends hiding in the woodworks waiting to beat me up?"

"I was never really into that sort of thing growing up. There were more important things to concentrate my energy on than random impulses from my hormones. It was another way to exercise self-control, and the more people told me it would be impossible to resist the more I wanted to resist it. Weird right?" It had helped that her tumultuous home life had driven home the futility of relationships early on.

It sounded all too familiar to Soul. "When I left home and everyone told me I'd never make it on my own… I think I get what you're saying. Not about the hormone thing, though, you're clearly just some sort of freak. If a girl even winked at me in middle school I would have followed her around like a puppy."

He gave her one of those smiles that made Maka think she needed to visit a cardiologist. "It's hard for me to imagine you didn't have lots of girls trying to get your attention at any age. You don't strike me as shy and retiring. Or particularly humble."

"Tell me how you really feel!" Soul gave a short laugh. "You might be right, I was pretty focused on doing my own thing in school. I wasn't really concerned with all the social stuff. Or homework. Or school for that matter…"

"Then what did you do with all that time? I was in a million club activities, lacrosse, and on the student council at least a couple years… and I was still reading and seeing friends… spare time was for sleep." Maka had also been doing everything possible to stay away from home and the parade of 'nice' women her papa had initially started dating to replace the gaping hole Kami had left in both their lives.

Soul gave her a sideways look. "Lacrosse huh? I can't picture it. What did I do? I don't know, hang out, play around, I had a couple part time jobs doing whatever. Black Star and I would cut class and play basketball a lot, until the truant officers caught onto us and started picking us up too regularly. We got suspended once for a prank we pulled on Kid which seemed like a great idea at the time, but when he flipped out and had a panic attack the homeroom teacher thought we needed to learn a lesson, or something." Soul shrugged. "All we did was rearrange his locker a little. A week doing nothing was like an extra spring break."

"Did nothing drive you? Did you have a dream or a goal?" Maka felt profoundly sad somehow, comparing how intensely her life had burned when everything had been about trying to escape her papa and start a new life. When was the last time she felt like something pushed her up to her limit and beyond?

Being cool did not count as a life goal, Soul thought wistfully, not really to a woman like Maka. "I'm more the kind of person that focuses on whatever is in front of me at the time." He wanted to cover her hand with his, but he thought it might be more creepy than romantic after that line and hesitated, flagging down a waiter to take their order instead. Despite Maka's protests he did indeed order her a giant fruit covered cocktail and asked for a couple glasses of water in the meantime.

"So are we going to dance, or what?" Maka had steeled herself for it and was ready to leap in. Hesitation would only bring more doubts. Her knee was bouncing under the table a little as she started to convert emotional energy into physical energy.

"What happened to 'I don't know how to do it'?" Soul was a little startled that she was ready to just get out there. He'd figured there would be a little cajoling, he'd tease her a bit and insult her sense of adventure just enough, and then she's finally join him for something slow. Aggressive Maka was pretty sexy, honestly.

The movements didn't look all that complicated, Maka thought she could sense the pattern. "I had a friend like that in high school. I liked her a whole lot, but the first words out of her mouth everywhere we went were 'I've never done that before' usually followed by an excuse why she didn't want to try. I just got used to being the one to go first, I guess." Crona had been such a mess of a person, Maka wished she hadn't moved away before they graduated because she felt like their friendship had been a rock to steady both of their lives.

With a grin, Soul offered Maka a hand out of the chair and led her to the dance floor. He rested his hand at her waist, struck again by how petite she was physically when her personality made her seem larger. This was at least familiar territory, the old steps he'd been forced to learn to escort family friends to debutante balls and cotillions reminding his muscles this was just a matter of following the beat of the music. Maka allowed herself a few moments to learn, but then dancing became more like a tug of war as Soul found she wasn't allowing herself to be led so much as pulling him in the direction she wanted to go. At first he wanted to fight it, but eventually Maka's unconventional leading felt comfortable. It was almost a relief to let her do the hard work of finding the open spots on the floor and gliding into them because it let him concentrate on the slide of the cloth under his fingers, and the cute but intense look on her face.

The music let up and they made their way back to the table, where her fruity drink had been waiting for her. She looked at him with a cocked eyebrow.

"I kept an eye on the table, no one did anything to your drink I swear."

"I'll take my price in blood from you if you're lying." Despite all her protests, she was quick to snatch the pineapple slice from the rim. Dinner was still too far away for her liking.

"If you give me the cherry, I'll tie the stem into a knot with my tongue for you." Soul waited for her to take a sip before he offered, and then gave a full throated laugh as she choked so hard she gripped the table and looked daggers at him until her coughing fit subsided. "I guess that's a no."

When the cherry was dropped onto the napkin in front of him, though, he looked at Maka with slight astonishment.

She was all seriousness as she added. "So what do I win when you fail?"

***

"You suck at this." She was unrepentant, making him adjust his grip again so it was less painful. From the way he was whining you'd think he'd never given anyone a piggyback ride. No way was she as heavy as he was pretending.

"C'mon, Maka, you're heels aren't that high. If I suck so bad at it maybe you should just walk." Stupid delicate cherry stems. Stupid sharp teeth. Soul knew he shouldn't have let Maka decide the terms, but it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

They were stumbling along the block leading up to her apartment building, in that sweet spot of the evening where it was too early for the bars to shove people out for the night but too late to think about finding another place to sit and talk. Soul didn't really want the night to be over, but it was looking like that was inevitable as Maka tried to shimmy farther up on his back.

"Chop chop!" She pulled at a handful of his hair lightly to emphasize she was the one in control. "I won't make you carry me up the stairs because I don't want to break my neck, but you're getting me up to the security door at least."

Soul grumbled under his breath about cherries, dry cleaning bills for suits, gravity, and the general unfairness inherent in the world.

"Hey, Soul?"

"Yeah?" He grunted as he moved them forward in a zigzag and attempted to not drop his wonderful but frustrating date onto the pavement backwards.

"I totally get it if you're tired, but if you want to come up and watch some TV and have a cup of tea or something…" Her words were tentative, and Soul halted his forward progress to listen. "I don't know, you don't have to do anything that—"

"Of course I do, damn it, you barely let me answer questions before you try to answer them for me." He felt her pull his hair slightly more sharply. "Ow! Come on! This was not part of the deal!"

Her muffled giggle made him smile through the pain of carrying her the last block. After setting her carefully back down on the pavement he took the opportunity to loosen his tie and take off his jacket as she led him through the entrance and back up the stairs that were getting familiar enough that he was noticing patterns in the chipped yellow paint of the safety railing.

"Your dad isn't home right now, is he?" Maka could hear the apprehension in Soul's voice behind her on the stairs.

"He'll be out drinking all night. He rarely comes home before noon on Sundays." Or that's how it was since shortly before her mom left. Some things never really change, but she also knew that if he didn't follow his usual patterns she would assume her papa was in some sort of terrible trouble.

She was opening the door to the third floor so she didn't hear what Soul mumbled, but it was probably something not very complimentary about her papa. There wasn't anything he could say that she hadn't both thought herself or had other people say to her. But in the end he was still her papa, and she couldn't not love him. Her inability to completely detach had felt like failure for years, but Tsubaki had assured her she was pretty normal. Of course Tsubaki was probably 'breaking her door' again tonight with the help of a loud blue-haired idiot, casting shadows on her friend's idea of normal.

They entered her apartment, and now that he wasn't looking at everything upside down on the floor, Soul could see all her packed bookshelves. Everything was neat as a pin, but slightly flavorless. There was that sense that utility was considered for every purchase—every chair, every picture, every kitchen appliance. Maka herself was fun, but there was no sense of fun in this apartment.

"I'm going to change quickly, then I'll put the kettle on. Feel free to have a seat." Her eyes flickered over to the haphazard pile of blankets and pillows next to the couch that counted as 'cleaning up' to her papa. Soul draped his pinstriped jacket over a kitchen chair and began the process of rolling up his sleeves. She wanted to just stand there and watch him, but managed to shake herself out of her reverie and headed back to put on something more casual.

Soul turned towards the couch and picture frames on top of a shelf caught his eye. A forest of smiling female friends, many in school uniforms, with an equally smiling young Maka caught his eye. In the very back, obscured by a large camping group photo where Tsubaki was holding up a fish triumphantly, a picture of her father pinching toddler Maka's cheek at a park made him smile.

"I should print out some new pictures to put up." Maka startled him, and he realized with a little bit of chagrin that he was just as attracted to her in a t-shirt and running shorts as he was when she was in her evening dress, or her work clothes and pigtails. Even more leg was exposed now and he'd give anything to run his hands over the pale skin of her legs from the ankle on up. "Let me get the tea started."

"Uh huh." Soul grimaced as he tried to pull some blood back to his brain. Best to sit down, hide his sudden issue, and concentrate on television. He tried to recite multiplication tables in his head, only to feel stupid when he faltered in the eights. It was working to calm him down, at least.

Meanwhile, Maka was having a crisis in the kitchen. What the hell was she thinking?! Clearly, from the way she had had to stop herself from running her hands through his unruly hair or slide her fingers down his tie, her lizard brain had ulterior motives for inviting Soul in compared to her rational side. Something about Soul made her really care that she got this right. His opinion of her really mattered, giving her a sense that the stakes were so high to get this right it made her knees weak. She dumped some water in the electric kettle and then gave the couch with Soul on it a long fatalistic look before wandering over and plopping down next to him. Those deep red bedroom eyes made the blood rush to her head as he edged closer to her, making their separation nonexistent.

"Anything good?" She was proud of how steady her voice sounded. He put a relaxed arm behind her shoulders and gave her a smile that turned her insides molten.

"Nope."

"There's hundreds of channels. It isn't possible there's nothing on."

"Believe it. Hundreds of infomercials, talking heads, and dopey sketch comedy."

Maka reached for the remote, insisting she could find something, but Soul was not the kind of man (i.e. any) that was about to relinquish control of the choice of channel. In fact, he was perversely pleased by how quickly Maka's protests had become shrill. She didn't have his reach so he held the device as far away from her as possible, which she countered by trying to crawl over him to wrestle it back. His strategic error was evident immediately. All his recently reclaimed blood rushed south again as the apex of their struggle found Maka straddling his lap and pulling his bicep down to access his white knuckled grip on the remote.

"Maka." She was intent on the remote still, in a way that made him wonder if this had been true coincidence or engineered to torture him. "Maka!"

Having just forced open his stiff fingers to win her technological prize, Maka finally realized she had very willingly thrown herself on top of Soul and the pressure against her core was not his rock hard _thigh_. His eyes pleaded with her to make the decision, because he couldn't. She had set the terms they had been playing by, and he was waiting for her decision. The tension in him made her muscles twitch in sympathy.

Soul's throbbing problem continued to stretch out his underwear as he watched Maka's face process a whole host of decisions outlined by the TV in the background attempting to sell him the most amazing new laundry detergent on mute. The loud click of the kettle in the kitchen caused them both to startle.

"Oh fuck it," Maka sighed using a tone uncannily like his own and leaned forward to press her lips over his and more thoroughly push herself onto him. His hands wandered down to grab her thighs instinctually and thrust forward. "If we count TV at your place this is our third date right?" She said breathlessly when they broke for air.

"Sure, ok." Soul didn't care if they had been on one date or twenty as of today so long as she didn't move from where she was on top of him. "Stop thinking, Maka."

***

Soul woke up earlier than he expected to the feeling of being drastically overheated. At first unsure why his AC was so damn broken, he realized a lot of that blazing heat was generated by the warm body next to him. Bright midmorning sunlight was filtering through her blinds, illuminating the twist of sheets on the bed and their obvious lack of clothing. A fan in the corner provided steady droning white noise, but not a whole lot of breeze. If this was going to be the new status quo he would buy her the stupid air conditioner himself.

Her back was turned to him and Soul allowed himself to run a finger lightly from her shoulder blade to the base of her spine, and gave a fond smile as goosebumps pebbled her skin in the wake of his touch. How many times in the past year had Black Star told him he needed to go out and get laid? Now that it had happened his mind was flooded with alarmingly fond thoughts directed at the woman next to him. He wished she'd wake up. He wished they could do it again. He wished he lived here and not what felt like halfway across town from her. He wished he had a toothbrush.

Maka had asked him about life goals last night and he had said he lived in the moment, which was true enough, but something that felt an awful lot like a goal was simmering in his mind. Endpoint of said goal had shifted in her sleep and something not unlike a soft snore was escaping her mouth. Soul didn't doubt she'd deny she snored later when he teased her about it. He looked forward to the inevitable fight.

After pressing a kiss onto her shoulder he leaned back and folded his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. It felt right to have a purpose like this, like he had just been waiting for Maka to appear in his life and make it feel like he was actually living it instead of just existing in it. This was new, but it already felt established somehow. He hoped she felt the same way.

"Maka!" The alarmed masculine shout from the other room made Soul cringe. Her dad much have seen the disaster they had made of the living room, as well as all the scattered articles of clothing. "Makaaaaaaa! Papa will save you!"

Awakened by the noise, Maka pushed herself halfway off the bed suddenly, green eyes focusing rapidly on Soul with a smile, then the door to her bedroom with a frown, back to Soul, and finally burying her face in the pillow with a groan. "He's back early? Why?!"

"Mornin' sunshine." Soul said, mercilessly enjoying her despair.


End file.
